Black-Owned Beauty Brand Ami Colé Is Shutting Down. What Does This Mean For Black Female Founders?
Ami Colé, a Black-owned beauty line founded by Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, will shut down in September. N’Diaye-Mbaye, who is one of the few Black women to raise more than $1 million in venture capital, wrote about her decision in The Cut, explaining that maintaining the business in this current market wasn’t sustainable.
“We made operational decisions that felt necessary at the time — like scaling up production to meet potential demand — without truly knowing how the market would respond,” N’Diaye-Mbaye said.
Ami Colé’s history
The brand, which launched in 2021, was created to serve Black and Brown individuals who have been previously underrepresented in the beauty industry. The beauty brand joined a list of Black businesses who received an outpouring of investments after the death of George Floyd, raising more than $3 million in venture capital.
“Within weeks of when the riots started, I received an influx of requests to bring my “deserving brand” to life,” she said. It raised over $1 million and launched in Sephora in September 2022, available in over 600 stores. The line also received a minority investment from BOLD, the corporate venture capital arm of L’Oréal, in October 2024, according to the Business of Fashion.
Whilst Ami Colé developed a loyal audience, N’Diaye-Mbaye explained that part of the company’s downfall was its inability to compete with more prominent companies that had bigger financial backing. “I couldn’t compete with the deep pockets of corporate brands; at retail stores, prime shelf space comes at a price, and we couldn’t afford it.”
What does this mean for other Black women-owned businesses?
Esthetician and skincare expert Alicia Larty told POCIT that she was unsurprised by news of the brand’s closure. “You have to remember Ami Colé is sold and founded in the US, and that is an area right now that is moving away from DEI practices and equity practices,” she said. “This means that your investment pool becomes smaller and you have to work ten times harder for your customer base compared to other founders and brands.”
However, she shared that Ami Colé’s departure is a reminder that no one is safe and that the door is closing for Black businesses. “It’s really made a lot of Black female founders very scared of the next steps.”
“As a Black woman already working in skincare, it’s already very difficult. I’m sometimes the only Black woman working in specific spaces. This loss has made me realise that things are not as inclusive as they seem. It’s made me feel very isolated even as a consumer, as you can fall in love with a brand and it can be gone the next day for reasons you can’t control.”
Like many of her peers, Lartey is left wondering what her future holds and whether a career in beauty is still possible.
Image: Alexandra Genova
